ON Tuesday, I received a very bizarre e-mail. Attached was quite a long letter on the headed paper of Newcastle United. Would I like to be one of the first eight members of the newly formed VIP Hall of Fame?

Oh, how I laughed.

All I had to do was attend a black tie bash, where a This Is Your Life style evening would unravel honouring Ant and Dec, Norman Wisdom, Tony Blair, Steve Harmison, John McCririck, someone else who I have already forgotten and myself.

By the way, I was guaranteed directors’ box tickets for life and the whole evening was being filmed for TV!

Unfortunately for the clown who sent me this e-mail, they may have thought they were cunning by writing on headed paper and from a genuine NUFC address, but they brilliantly spelt the name wrong of the genuine person in sales to who the e-mail was attributed.

Apart from that, Ant and Dec will be on telly, Harmy will be in the West Indies, and I will probably be watching both.

Much more interesting for me is the motivation behind it.

Was it sent by someone at the club? I don’t think so. Was it sent by someone having a laugh who thought I was game for a laugh? I doubt that. Did it come from someone who thought I would genuinely attend, only to be lured into some gaffe? Who knows.

Was it someone showing off to his mates how, as the king of the internet, he could get to anyone? Possibly.

Or was it something to do with the fans who I upset last week who, as I predicted and which was then demonstrated by blinkered correspondence to this paper, were unable to see the other point of view?

Actually, I am not sure it was them either, as much as I upset them.

Either way, let me make a few points. The e-mail amused me, but you will have to try harder next time.

Secondly, I don’t go out so if you want to invite me to anything like this, make it about 10.05am, right after my radio show.

A Thursday is normally quite good, unless there is cricket on.

Much more importantly, however, is this. Unlike most people, I wouldn’t consider it an honour to have accepted anyway and for several reasons.

I don’t buy any concept of VIP. Why honour a celebrity fan, if, indeed, I were one? That is an insult to the real fans.

Furthermore, if you sign up to something like this, your credibility is shot forever, because you will feel, within your soul, unable to ever say anything negative in public ever again against those who have honoured you.

Simply, you have been bought. An innocent form of blackmail.

How long would it be before somebody says “he said what, after all we’ve done for him?”